HAICO CEO Report

Bob has had the pleasure of working on Haida Gwaii since 1995. As a registered Professional Forester, he has worked in a variety of management roles for the Ministry of Forests, private industry, and lastly with Taan/Haico. In 2000, an MBA from Queen’s University was added to his educational credentials.

BOB BRASH, CEO

Posted 02|25|2016

At HaiCo, the beginning of the calendar year always brings on a flurry of activity. Managers would have started the preliminary work on their budget forecasts for the next year starting April 1st and the vetting process will start throughout the organization and Board of Directors to have these approved. These budgets are critical to our business as they set the priorities for the upcoming years activities together with our major capital expenditures to improve our various businesses.

Improving our various businesses is an ongoing process never to be finished. On that front, I am looking forward to sessions with our Managers, Board of Directors, and the Haida Nation in the next few months to work on our collective visions for our Strategic Plan for HaiCo. While HaiCo internally worked on updating our Strategic Plan from a few years ago, this is only part of the equation as our ideas on future directions need to sync with our Board and the Haida Nation. We are hopeful this critical step will be completed by April 1st to coordinate with our upcoming new fiscal year.

Some of the higher priority strategies to work on include creating more jobs on Haida Gwaii through processing of wood, finding means to increase capacity at the Haida House at Tllaal, creating more cultural tourism experiences, finding better energy solutions on Haida Gwaii, strengthening our presence in the commercial fishing industry, improving financial performance, and continual improvement on our environmental and safety records.

In the meantime, lots of other jobs need to be done. These can range from getting employees hired for upcoming seasons in Westcoast Resorts and Haida Wild, getting roads built on harvesting areas for logging crews, selling cultural tourism packages at the Haida House, working on better management information systems for the managers, and working with the communities to improve training and skills development. And this is just a partial list.

In the spring edition of the HaiCo newsletter, you’ll see a wide spectrum of articles depicting various aspects of the HaiCo businesses you own. We’ve attempted to bring a variety of articles and a far more local aspect to the newsletter. We want to hear your opinions on the newsletter and, more importantly, your suggestions for further improvements.
Hope you enjoy it and look forward to seeing many of you over the next year.